warrington’s blog

My wide topic is, “How to motivate and encourage academically-challenged students?”

It’s heart-breaking for all teachers to see students slipping through the proverbial cracks in our classroom floors, especially when, for one, it’s our job to help them and, for two, you know you COULD help them if only you didn’t have so much else on the go (25 other students in the room, teams to coach, meetings to attend, other classes to prepare for, and so on, and so on…). Wouldn’t you sometimes just love to be able to be a one-on-one tutor and help a struggling kid find success??

SO, I’d love to find a way to be able to keep teaching the other 90% of students in my room, as well as finding a way of keeping on board the 10% of students who really struggle.

My sub-topic is, “Can the use of education technology help academically-challenged students, boys in particular, find better success?” My rationale for this is that:

*Boys have been in an academic slide for the past 15 years or so. There is much research showing that boys generally now have lower marks than girls in every area of grade school, and in post-secondary education as well, in every area of study, (except engineering and physics).

*Boys also fail more, drop out of school more, get disciplined more, and have more behavioral and emotional disorders than girls.

*In the 1970’s, it was found that girls were behind in Math and Science, and that boys were behind in Literacy. Since then, we in Education have addressed quite well the disparity between boys and girls in Math and Science; there are summer camps for girls in both areas, there are scholarships and contests for girls in Math, Science, and Literacy too. This is compelling evidence that encouragement and support actually do work for students. We should be proud of our success with helping girls and we should continue this help.

*But there is very little help out there for boys apart from Special Education classes. Increasingly, it looks like it is boys who need our encouragement and support.

On the bright side, it is a truism that boys are often drawn to information-technology. It is one of the few areas of school that is cool (let’s put the ‘geek factor’ aside for a moment) and masculine. Let’s face it, being really good at math or history or English, or French isn’t going to get a boy any points from the cool, tough crowd, but being able to take a computer apart and re-build a ‘Franken-computer’ is deserving of respect, from anyone.

It is also a truism that girls are computer-phobic, (or at least ‘computer-reticent’, according to Sherry Turkle, co-chair of the AAUW’s Commission on “Tech, Gender, and Teacher Education). Girls have been enjoying quite good academic success in the past couple of decades, but if it is true that they are not drawn to info tech, is there a danger that increased use of info tech in the classroom could hinder their success?

SO, my field study idea is two-fold:

1/ Will the use of info-tech in the classroom help to motivate and encourage at least some chronically academically-challenged boys?

2/ Could the use of info-tech in the classroom actually hinder girls’ success?

I’ve looked at some articles to see if I can find any solidly-based research supporting my idea. One of them in particular shed some interesting light on the subject. Transition Points for the Gender Gap in Computer Enjoyment, by Christensen et al, was accurately titled in that they did indeed find that there were transition points in the self-reported enjoyment of computers between boys and girls in different grades. A summary:

*Interestingly, at the primary level there was no significant difference in ‘computer enjoyment’ between boys and girls.

*By grade five girls enjoyed computers more.

*There was then a transition in grade six.

*And by grade eight boys reported enjoying computers more and this general affinity for computers carried on through high school

*(However, by grade 11 girls were more adept than were boys at surfing the www and at using email).

Another article, Do girls and boys need different electronic books? by J. Mikk and P. Luik, concluded that the use of ‘e-books’ did not “disturb the learning” of boys, but that e-books with a high degree of complexity of navigation and design of information did “endanger the learning efficiency of girls.”

Hmmm, interesting, no?

So I did find some research supporting my two-fold idea. To fine-tune my field study, I have to narrow the focus and find a way to measure my own students. How can I frame the question to allow students to respond to the concepts of “academically-challenged”? and “is info tech helping you?”